I have suggested this before and it was pretty much dismissed as "You can't do that because

it isn't mentioned in the Constitution and it's never been done before." I'm back.

The Trump "presidency" doesn't just need to be ended--- it needs to be "anulled" in most respects. "Anulled" means it is legally "held for naught", i.e., treated as though it never existed. The annulment could consist of requiring that ALL appointments---including judicial---would have to be reconfirmed by Congress as a whole. Similarly, a majority vote of Congress could require the reconsideration of any laws, treaties, etc signed or agreed to by the "president".

The basis for the annulment, of course, would be plain old garden variety FRAUD. With the help of Russia and Trump's cadre of domestic fascists, some were fraudulently barred from voting and others were manipulated to vote for a candidate who fraudulently represented himself as something he was not. A contract procured by fraud may be ruled " "void ab initio" or, invalid from day one.

Why should we treat a "presidency" procured by fraud any differently?

New statutes COULD be passed and signed into law.

The Constitution COULD be construed to provide a remedy for a monstrous wrong not contemplated by its framers

If necessary, the Constitution COULD be amended to specifically deal with a fraudulent presidency.

1. Nope.

There's no universal button to push to do this.

Individual people could be impeached, individual laws could be overturned, but all of that is normal legislative functioning. And each case is independent that would need to pass Congress and the President's signature.

78. "Government by fiat"? No reasonably intelligent honest person could so characterize

81. No, that's pretty much the precise definition

of what you’re proposing. Stepping outside the delegated authority and procedure laid down by the Constitution to solve a problem you deem unsolvable by normal means is government by fiat. The undertaking of extra-Constitutional solutions - even “one-off” solutions - render the entire document moot.

2. Hear, hear. Too many people--even here at DU--seem to think the old cliche is true--

...that the Constitution really is a suicide pact. Why on earth should a literal traitor, and his "administration", be regarded as legitimate in any way? Or that the treasonous bargain that McConnell, Ryan and company made with the devil, deserves to be respected?

99. Congress could impeach (and should).

The Senate would have to vote for removal, which may never happen with the current idiots. But even if they did, the constitution gives Congress only power to remove. There is no power to annul.

Courts however DO have power to order an election invalid and have done so before, though typically only before count is certified. I am not sure if there is a precedent for removal after that if fraud is later found. Maybe some legal eagles here.

Generally justices don't recuse just because the government is arguing a case under the administration that appointed them. Though I suppose if the case made an argument for nullifying all actions, an argument for recusal could be made, but I don't see those two lackeys recusing themselves.

77. No, he wants to go to Long Beach and throw some shipping containers into the harbor

103. I like your passion and concern. What you are saying is why are we going to play by the

rules when they dont.

Why do we sit back and do nothing, so far, but McConnell gets to deny the people their choice for the SC, etc.

I could go on.

But, as has been pointed out, if we do an end around to get JUSTICE they will use it to get fascism. But you then say they already HAVE fascism or close to it. Well no, not yet, not quite, but real close, for sure.

I will now remind everyone NONE of this had to happen...emails, "I just cant trust her, she gave A speech" ..."she embellished a story about a helicopter" (how ironic, the filthy traitor in the WH would never get that close to actual danger in a million years that she did.)

No matter how much control patriots get back, we will never return to the normal we had before because now the cons can see they can openly lie, commit quasi treason and there are no consequences.

62. So you want a violent revolution?

One ought to be careful making "tea party" references on DU.

The American Revolution was an extremely violent series of events. Not sure you want to be advocating that.

Oh, and the originial tea party was where a bunch of white guys dressed up as native Americans to try to get the blame transferred to them. Again, probably not something one wants to be advocating on DU.

5. I like your thinking, Atticus

I have considered that myself. We would need to have a super majority in both houses plus the White House. I think that all of The Orange One's nominations etc. should be nullified, but I'm not sure what the pathway would be. I truly don't believe that there are ANY republicons in office right now who would go along with this plan. I mean, ol' Mitch called HB1 a "power grab". Getting corruption and dark money out of politics, plus ensuring the right to vote is a power grab??? Really???

But I also don't think we should dismiss it out of hand just because it's never been done before. Yeah, well, we've never had a fraudulent president before either.

14. So, amending the Constitution is a "ridiculous idea"? Really?

And, no, of course I don't have a specific itemized, cross-checked and foolproof plan for this. But, that should not mean the concept can't be considered. The surest recipe to continue the status quo is to insist that nothing be done that has never been done before.

23. Sorry you feel "harangued". nt

10. Roosevelt threatened to add what? Nine more Supreme Court justices when they refused to play ball?

The current Supreme Court is an absolute arbiter only as long as we allow it to be. Many of his programs were absolute stinkers and some blatantly unconstitutional, but he got what he wanted. And before it is posted, yes it would only open up the system for further abuse by the GOP when in power, but that's what they already do currently...Merrick Garland ring a bell anyone? How about Justice Kennedy's 'retirement'?

28. Um, Roosevelt did not get what he wanted

It was quashed in the Senate — by Democrats, no less. He wanted to pack the courts but ultimately could not.

It was not because it was unconstitutional (the Constitution does not specify the size of the court). Congress can specify the number of members, and it was the Judiciary Act of 1869 that set the court at nine members (a Chief Justice plus 8 associate justices). Congress did not want to pass Roosevelt’s proposal to expand that.

It’s called democracy. We have the rule of law. We can change the laws, but we can’t make shit up without the three branches of government each doing their job.

To annul a presidency, Congress would essentially have to pass a Constitutional ammendment and then have it ratified by 3/4 of all the states. Not likely.

49. Not because of his attempt to pack the courts

A bunch of justices died or retired, and he finally got to choose some.

A political fight which began as a conflict between the President and the Supreme Court turned into a battle between Roosevelt and the recalcitrant members of his own party in the Congress.[15] The political consequences were wide-reaching, extending beyond the narrow question of judicial reform to implicate the political future of the New Deal itself. Not only was bipartisan support for Roosevelt's agenda largely dissipated by the struggle, the overall loss of political capital in the arena of public opinion was also significant.[15]

As Michael Parrish writes, "the protracted legislative battle over the Court-packing bill blunted the momentum for additional reforms, divided the New Deal coalition, squandered the political advantage Roosevelt had gained in the 1936 elections, and gave fresh ammunition to those who accused him of dictatorship, tyranny, and fascism. When the dust settled, FDR had suffered a humiliating political defeat at the hands of Chief Justice Hughes and the administration's Congressional opponents."[98][99]

With the retirement of Justice Willis Van Devanter, the Court's composition began to move solidly in support of Roosevelt's legislative agenda. By the end of 1941, following the deaths of Justices Benjamin Cardozo (1938) and Pierce Butler (1939), and the retirements of Van Devanter (1937), George Sutherland (1938), Louis Brandeis (1939), James Clark McReynolds (1941), and Charles Evans Hughes (1941), only two Justices (former Associate Justice, by then promoted to Chief Justice, Harlan Fiske Stone, and Associate Justice Owen Roberts) remained from the Court Roosevelt inherited in 1933.

As former Chief Justice William Rehnquist observed:

President Roosevelt lost the Court-packing battle, but he won the war for control of the Supreme Court ... not by any novel legislation, but by serving in office for more than twelve years, and appointing eight of the nine Justices of the Court. In this way the Constitution provides for ultimate responsibility of the Court to the political branches of government. [Yet] it was the United States Senate - a political body if there ever was one - who stepped in and saved the independence of the judiciary ... in Franklin Roosevelt's Court-packing plan in 1937.[100]

50. That's not the whole story.

The early New Deal-era Court’s hostility to government activism did not neatly cut across partisan lines: the four-member conservative bloc included two Democrats, and the two swing justices were Republican. Even the three ostensibly liberal justices were unreliable allies. All three had joined three unanimous rulings against the New Deal issued on May 27, 1935, which came to be called Black Monday. These included decisions against NIRA (A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States) and FDR’s firing of a conservative commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission (Humphrey’s Ex’r v. United States). Liberal lion Louis Brandeis even authored the decision against mortgage moratoria, finding them to be an unconstitutional seizure of banks’ private property (Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford). Another liberal, Benjamin Cardozo, was the only one to dissent in an earlier NIRA case (Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan), a dissent he described as but a “narrow” point of difference with the other eight justices.

Had such precedents been allowed to stand, much of the basic federal legislation we took for granted (at least until the Roberts Court) would have been impossible to build. FDR had long sensed this, considering early in his first term a number of options to restrict the Court’s judicial review powers. Yet as historian William Leuchtenburg reports in his book on the era, public opinion was generally sour on these ideas — the Court was associated with the integrity of the Constitution itself. Nonetheless, FDR had triumphed in the 1936 elections, winning all but two states and the highest share of the popular vote in the history of the two-party system. He returned to office determined to find a way to unstick the New Deal.

On February 5, 1937, Roosevelt proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Act, a bill that would have empowered him to appoint a new justice for every sitting one who refused to retire within six months of his seventieth birthday. At the time, six justices were already older than that, so the move would have expanded the Court to fifteen.

<snip>
The effect of FDR’s threat was immediate. Within weeks, in what came to be called “the switch in time that saved nine,” the two swing votes joined with the three liberals to uphold the Wagner Act and Washington State’s minimum wage law. By 1941, emboldened with serious legal protections for the first time, union density doubled (even before the US entry into World War II, when industrial mobilization led to further gains). And by that time, enough retirements and deaths had taken place to allow Roosevelt to appoint a majority of the court. For the rest of Roosevelt’s terms, the Court blessed 100 percent of the New Deal initiatives identified by Calvert.

13. So you think we should just arbitrarily ignore

the Constitution and the rule of law? Really?

It does matter that there's no provision to "annul" a Presidency. None whatsoever. And who are you proposing to pass new statutes? The various states? Congress? Yes, the Constitution is amendable, and has been amended, 27 times so far although only 17 of those amendments after the first ten which were passed as a group. It would take years to pass an amendment such as you're suggesting. Oh, and just how would you word that amendment?

32. Essentially that's what you want to do, even if you aren't wording it that way.

You want to be able to "annul" the Trump's election when there is no authority to do so. And even your suggestion of passing new laws or a Constitutional amendment is blithely unaware of how long such things take.

Plus, quite frankly, I don't want changes put in that would allow a President to be removed so easily.

19. The wording is a cinch

1. Congress, the Courts or whomever as the case may be, shall have the power to undo everything a president does, except for the stuff we wouldn’t want to undo, upon the sixth time it is posted as an OP on an Internet forum.

2. The power vested by the first section hereof shall only be used if and when it is a really good idea, and not when it isn’t.

31. Count me in!!

34. I agree with the concept a hundred percent.

I understand that the Constitution, as it currently stands, does not provide the appropriate remedy for something like this.

Needless to say, the framers never foresaw even a remote possibility that a U.S. president could be elected as the result of interference by a foreign power, and to their benefit as opposed to the interests of our own nation.

If Trump is proven to be a Russian asset, or even having been "elected" through fraudulent means, I would consider all of his actions in office to be "fruits of a poisoned tree".

The problem that arises is just how much "undoing" would be practicable. For example, how far down the chain could appointments be undone? Would a finding that a presidency was obtained through fraudulent means lead to the undoing of all judicial appointments made by that president? Could international treaties that president withdrew from be reinstated as though the withdrawal never happened?

It's a can of worms - but I believe that the Constitution could (and should) be amended to provide the necessary measures to "undo" the actions of an illegitimate POTUS as much as is feasible.

The Constitution is a living document, and should be revisited and amended if and when necessary. We should not be bound by 18th Century thinking in a 21st Century world. A perfect example is the "right to bear arms" - an idea based on archaic firearms, and not on the right to possess military-grade weapons as they exist today.

The so-called "Trump pResidency" has opened the proverbial "can of worms" - and its consequences need to be Constitutionally re-examined.

The framers couldn't possibly foresee the internet, social media, cyber warfare, the influence of TV and the MSM. But we, as a citizenry, ARE facing the consequences of those things that could never have been envisioned at the time the framers set out what they did.

Our Constitution needs to be amended accordingly, so that it reflects what is happening NOW, as opposed to what was possible THEN.

39. Thank you for your thoughtful response. In general, the law will not allow someone to benefit from

their own wrongdoing. The example often cited is the teen being sentenced for the murder of his parents who pleads for mercy because he is an orphan. Justice should not allow Trump to use the presidency to avoid liability---civil and criminal---for stealing the presidency.

As to how much "undoing would be appropriate, I don't think all judges, for example, should be removed and that is why I proposed having Congress (?) vote as to which would be retained.(IMHO, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh should absolutely go.)

I certainly don't have all the answers, but I think we should be willing to "color outside the lines" in response to this psychopathic regime.

65. The authors did forsee this problem

They argued at length that Catholics shouldn't be allowed to be president because it would risk putting the country under the influence of the Vatican. They argued that the AG should be an independently elected office. It's where the emoluments clause comes from, as well as the prohibition on foreign titles. It's why one has to be a "natural born citizen". They also envisioned that the EC would help prevent this stuff. And of course part of the point of Senate confirmation of various executive offices was in an attempt to address this problem.

Of course they couldn't figure out how to do some of this stuff, and some of it they did enact. But they also were aware of the problem of the "power vacuum". There were no "votes of confidence" in our system because they didn't want to see what Italy saw for years where there was a new government every 9 months for a while.

The reason we are here isn't because of Trump alone. It is because the Republican Party has decided not to gain a majority to govern, but in fact govern with a controlling minority. To do that requires voter suppression, gerrymandering, and to some extent this kind of political meddling. Citizens United has helped tremendously as well. As such, the congress is not doing it's job. The senate is approving cabinet members that never should have been approved. Garland should be sitting on the bench. But that would require the GOP to respect the democratic process.

The fatal flaw in the constitution is the distribution of power by states. The senate has a ridiculously distorted representation relative to the population. 30% of the population can control the senate. It distorts the EC. It distorts the senate confirmation process. And it's only going to get worse.

48. It helps to read what was actually posted before turning to your usual snark. nt

60. "The Trump "presidency" doesn't just need to be ended--- it needs to be "anulled" in most respects."

We don't have a process, legally, to annul a Presidency. And if we're going to do so in contravention of the Constitution and laws, we don't have a basis for complaining when Trump tries to do the same.

61. "When a team has been shown to have cheated in a basketball game, they forfeit the game"

...because the rule of the game and the league provide for that.

Here is the actual "rule" governing Presidential Elections: States pick electors. How States do that is not specified. If they choose to award their Electors based on the mis-informed votes of the public, that's their choice.

64. I won't be flaming away on you because I

think you are dead on. Your Constitution was devised by men not god, they didn’t even have a lightbulb or the concept of electricity. The fraud of 2016 perpetrated on Americans they could never have envisioned so the remedy must be dealt with now.

66. You realize the process of amending

the Constitution takes years, and would require states that elected Trump and that are filled with voters that support his presidency turn against him?

There are a few simple solutions to our problem — one is impeachment and conviction. That ain’t gonna happen. The other is beating him in 2020. That’s eminently doable.

As for annulment of his presidency, there is simply no way to make that happen no matter how much you gnash your teeth and scream at the sky.

His presidency is as legitimate as any other, inasmuch as legitimacy is bestowed by the Electors. Those Electors are under no obligation to respect the will of the voters or to take into account the degree to which the more simple-minded among their number may have been influenced by Russian propaganda or Hillary’s emails or ‘bros screaming about Pizzagate.

80. And it will be dismissed again. Why? Because you can't do that.

We can't do that. There is no mechanism available to do that.

So, why keep beating that dead horse? There are many things we can do. Congress could impeach and remove him. His cabinet could declare him unable to carry out his job. Will those things happen? Nope. Probably not. In any case, as individuals, we really can't cause either thing to happen.

What can we do, then? Well what we can do, should do, and probably will do is to elect someone else to that office in November, 2020. That's the only thing we the people can do about a shitty President. And we have. And we will. That is the very powerful option open to us as Americans.

If you're looking for a place to put your energy, you need look no farther than 2020. That's the solution we have available. Why tilt at windmills when there is a real solution at hand and doable?

93. Exactly. It's all magical thinking

and buying into the notion that repeating yourself more insistently trumps facts and supercedes reality.

The OP has yet to outline a single law that would solve the problem while still hewing to the Constitution, neither have they explained which portion of the document could be “construed” in a way that annuls a presidency.

94. The basis for annulment fails

Leaving aside mechanisms you indicate:

The basis for the annulment, of course, would be plain old garden variety FRAUD. With the help of Russia and Trump's cadre of domestic fascists, some were fraudulently barred from voting and others were manipulated to vote for a candidate who fraudulently represented himself as something he was not. A contract procured by fraud may be ruled " "void ab initio" or, invalid from day one.

As far as I know no electors were barred from voting. With very, very few exceptions they were free to vote for anyone they chose, even people other than the two candidates. The charge of fraud will not hold up.

100. Annulment is one path. David Letterman suggested a different one a while ago.

Letterman famously suggested that Trump "... be taken aside and put in a home." To expand on that idea a bit might I suggest that his behavior suggests that he is quite nuts? As such he could be a candidate for civil commitment. Once a court comes to the same conclusion, we make the argument that his mental disorder has rendered him incapable of being able to make legally binding decisions or enter into agreements (i.e. contracts, etc.). Our legal system has already decided that people adjudicated to be nuts cannot enter into contracts and any contracts that they entered into while they were so afflicted are voidable. It would be a groundbreaking decision but it is not that much of leap to argue that the same mental defect or deformity that prevents such a person from being able to form a contract would also prevent them, in the public realm, to make appointments or sign laws. From there the argument would flow into a new concept... voidable appointments and voidable laws.